A beloved tree died on Friday.
It was raining softly when the NOW arrived at a home on Lakeland Drive. The quiet street is part of a small residential neighbourhood north of Government Road between Brighton and Lakedale avenues.
In the backyard, Lee-Erin McKenney stood at the base of an old hemlock tree, protecting it from a group of workers keen to cut it down.
The confrontation between neighbours began Friday afternoon when McKenney’s mother Sue noticed a tree removal crew chopping branches off the towering hemlock in her neighbour’s backyard. Concerned the tree was going to come down, she spoke with the crew. She soon discovered they had no permit to remove the tree, and that’s when she called her daughter.
McKenney said her mother was in a panic when she called around 1 p.m., so McKenney zipped over to her childhood home hoping she could save the tree.
“I wasn’t planning on any of this; I didn’t know anything about this,” she told the NOW.
McKenney grew up on Lakeland Drive. Her parents’ backyard intersects with the adjacent neighbours’ yards. When she was little, she and her brother along with other kids from the neighbourhood would all play in the large, shared yard.
“We all grew up together, and this was all part of our playground,” she said, extending her arms around her.
Since having kids of her own, they too have spent many hours playing in the yard.
And the hemlock tree was just one of several in the yard that carried a special meaning for McKenney, whose family has lived in the Lakeland Drive home for about 45 years.
“That was my Christmas tree when I was about five,” she said, pointing to a large evergreen tree across the way.
In fact, many of the trees that surround her parents’ home were former Christmas trees from her youth. Now they stand watch over the neighbourhood that’s been mostly untouched by the booming development commonly seen in other parts of the city.
“I love it. It’s beautiful; it’s so beautiful, and that’s one of the reasons I love it so much is because it’s so pretty and there’s so many birds,” McKenney said of the idyllic neighbourhood.
During a brief attempt to convince McKenney to leave her post at the base of the tree, neighbour Wendy Zhang was having the tree removed because of its weak roots. (This was confirmed by the city arbourist who issued the permit.)
Zhang said the tree had been topped several years before, and since then she’s feared it would one day fall over. When she presented the permit to McKenney, McKenney was adamant a mistake had been made – the tree was still very much alive, she urged.
Eventually, the Burnaby RCMP was called to the home. The officer who attended was understanding, sympathizing with McKenney, but in the end told her there was nothing she could do since the homeowner now had the proper permit. McKenney was asked to leave the neighbour’s property, which she did without much fuss, taking one final look at the beloved tree.
“I understand that this is their yard, but I just think it’s wrong,” she said.
